Tree climbing

Yesterday afternoon the girls from across the street came over and showed Nick how to climb trees. Apparently the ones in our front yard are perfect for climbing. Nick looks right at home.

The tree has tons of crab apples this year - guess we should have sprayed for them the last 4 years, oh well. Anyway, so they were climbing up to shake the branches and make it "rain" crab apples. Nick was right at home.

Shoes shoes shoes

Nick is obsessed with shoes. I'm not sure where this comes from as neither Eric nor I have a strong affection towards shoes. But regardless, Nick was "helping" me put away some things in my closet when he pulled out a pair of my high heels and decided that he must try them on.

Once on he shuffled across the room. He quickly discovered that walking in high heels is a challenge and he should therefore respect women who wear them.

This weekend Nick also got his first pair of slippers. We didn't set out to buy slippers, we were actually trying to get a new pair of sneakers... oh well. These slippers combine Nick's two favorite things in the world - Elmo and shoes. They were made for him!

Clearly, he is excited. Grandma - please note the stools he's sitting on.

He ran around the house all afternoon playing and wearing his new favorite shoes. If only it will always be this easy.

More Adventures with Daddy

I was gone for a week in August. And when I say week I mean like 7 days. Eric is officially super Dad. Here are some highlights of his adventures with Nick. This summer it has been ridiculously hot. So hot that 85 feels nice and freshing. Needless to say, the boys had fun playing in the pool!

That weekend, they found a construction site along the road with all sorts of diggers and construction equipment. Since no one was around to stop them, they decided to take a look.
As you can see, Nick feels right at home with construction equipment. Lately he's entered a phase where he is obsessed with cars, trucks, machines, etc. Really anything that goes "vroom" is fair game.


And of course no day is complete without eating. While you can't tell this from this picture, Nick is actually eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he dipped in yogurt. Yes, you read that right... at least he thought it tasted good!

Birthday

I have the best boys ever! For my birthday this year, they baked me my favorite kind of from the box cake (yellow with chocolate frosting). They totally get an A for effort. Despite the slight frosting challenge evidenced below, the cake was delish.

Being the good mom that I am, I even let Nick have the first piece. He agrees that it was really good! Way to go Dad!
And depending on the angle from which you looked at the cake, you couldn't even see the frosting snafu.

Tulsa Aquarium

Today we decided to make Sunday an adventure. So we packed up the car and headed to Tulsa to the Oklahoma Aquarium. When we arrived they were feeding the beavers. Nick loved watching them have their snack.

He was also totally fascinated to watch all of the different kinds of fish swim around in the different tanks.

The aquarium had several hands on areas where you could touch and feel all sorts of sea creatures. Nick loved the sea cucumber so much that he picked it up and chucked it... sorry sea cucumber (but really, it can't be the first time that it was thrown).
Nick also loved trying to touch the sting rays. None of them came up high enough in the water though.



Far and away Nick's favorite hands on area was the shrimp. He kept trying and trying to catch one, but they were just too fast. Also, look closely at the picture. You can see Nick's tongue sticking out Grandpa-Muffin style. Yeah it was hanging out the entire time!
After our adventures at the zoo, we heading to Utica Square to grab some lunch and walk around before the drive home.

Big Shoes

Nick is fascinated with shoes. It doesn't matter whose shoes they are, he loves them. Lately he's been putting on Daddy's shoes and trying to walk in them.

He's actually pretty good at walking in Daddy's shoes, especially since they are so big on him!

Smiles

This is a collection of random pictures from the last week or so where Nick is actually smiling. As you can see in the background, we had to bribe him with Sesame Street to get him to smile here.

One of Nick's favorite toys right now are balls. Any sort of ball really, he's not too picky. He also loves to take this bag of about 100 balls, dump them out and then carry them all to the bathtub. Daddy even lets him take a bath with all of the balls - Daddy is way more fun than Mommy!

And of course how can we not smile while eating?!